Forza d'amore

1603
Woodcut
Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan

The ancient Greek epigram, The Force of Love on Land and Sea (Forza d'amore) was diffused throughout Europe in the seventeenth century by Cesare Ripa in his Iconologia, in a representation of a naked winged boy standing in a landscape, holding a fish in one hand and a garland of flowers in the other. The Iconologia was published in 1603 in Rome and republished in Milan, 1992.